Media lies and GOP dirty tricks

If you believe the media, the news of the day is that 8.3 million (8,300,000) people watched the Democrats up there in Hollywood debate about various subjects. Now, this raises some interesting questions that aren't being asked by our highly trained, highly groomed news men and women.

Right off the bat the question I have is how did they come up with the figure of 8.3 million? I don't believe for one second millions of people couldn't find anything better to watch, even during a screenwriters strike. That's a media distortion right there. This is after all, a reality-TV based instant gratification society that we live in today.

But I understand that we are supposed to accept what they tell us on the news as fact, so let's suspend our disbelief for one minute and look at the bigger issue. The thing we should really be questioning is whether all these “people” watching Hill and Obie, as I like to call them, are really Democrats. I have a strong suspicion some of those viewers were Republicans spying on the enemy. If 8 million voting Democrats tuned in, that's a lot. But if the remaining 300,000 were Republicans, that's still pretty many. So many that if you drove out all the people left in New Orleans and replaced them with these Democrat-debate-watching GOPers the population would stay about the same. The question is: Is this ethical? Should Republicans be watching the Democrats' debate? I'm not an expert on political ethics, but like you are, I'm thinking there could be some “dirty tricks” going on.

I don't think it's any more ethical for Republicans to watch the Democratic candidates debate than it would be for the Bush administration to drive out all the people of New Orleans and replace them with Republicans. I'm not saying that's what the government was trying to do with Hurricane Katrina, but it's certainly possible.

The problem is if you turn on any of the cable news networks talking about last night's debate, none of them are raising this issue. Is this another case of the right-wing media glossing over GOP impropriety? I don't know if that's the case because there doesn't even seem to be a consensus over whether the media is right wing or left wing. What you don't see is Democrats sneaking a peak at the Republican debates. Why would they? The Republicans are known to be more conservative and their views don't interest Democrats, who are widely acknowledged to be more liberal.